


Completely Unprofessional

by stackcats



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Emotional Manipulation, F/M, M/M, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Sexual Violence, rentboy au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2014-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-15 23:55:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1323994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stackcats/pseuds/stackcats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU (or pre-canon) in which Jamie is a rentboy, and Malcolm is his client. <br/>(The non-con in the warnings is NOT Malcolm/Jamie, but that relationship may also have some uncomfortable moments.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It's all about discretion. It turns out you can't just buy sex, you can buy silence too, and silence is good - the list of people Malcolm does not want to find out about this is, in 1988, just over 5.1 billion names long, but right at the top is his fiancee, then his dad, who he's pretty sure will still hunt him down and hit him with something, and then his mum, who will be  _disappointed_. You can't trust some guy from a club not to spot you in Tesco with the woman you're supposed to marry and start waving at you in the jam aisle, but you can trust these guys.

He's got a key to his cousin's place, and he's supposed to be looking after it, watering the planets etc, and he  _is_ doing all that. No one ever said "don't fuck prostitutes here please", so it's probably fine, right?

It usually goes the same way. Pick the guy up, take him to the house, quick, hard fuck, hand over the cash, water the sodding plants, go home.

Tonight, things are going differently. For a start, he can't look away from this boy's  _face_. 

It all tumbled out of control very quickly when Malcolm shut the front door and the boy, who just gave his name as  _J_ , grabbed the front of his shirt and kissed him. Malcolm shoved him off, what the  _fuck_ did he think - ? but was met with wide, blue eyes filled with genuine lust. So he did the only thing he was physically capable of doing and grabbed the boy by the collar, and shoved him up against the wall, and kissed him back, and sank to his knees, and made the lad sweat and swear and whimper helplessly, made him come and swallowed it down and kissed him again.

That was some time ago. Now Malcolm is flat on his back on his cousin's bed, sweat soaking the sheets, one hand scrabbling at the headboard for something to anchor him as the lad, J, bucks and writhes and shouts obscenities with Malcolm's cock deep inside him. Malcolm's completely out of control and he knows it, this is  _insane_ , it's not supposed to - J is the worst fucking rent boy he's ever had, the least professional, the most  _incredible_  - 

Malcolm grabs hold of the lad's hips, gathers him up, and rolls them both so he's on top, and J lets out a whimpering sigh as Malcolm sinks deep into him. Malcolm bites his throat, can't help it, just a quick flash of teeth, and J arches, his entire back coming up off the bed, hands grabbing at Malcolm's hair and shoulder and trying to get him to do it again. So he does, teeth nipping at salty skin.

And he fucks the lad deep and slow and fucking  _intense_ until he makes the touch-starved wee bastard come again.  


J's spent but he's not done, there's a degree of professionalism there as he grabs Malcolm's arse and squeezes and encourages him to  _fuck_. Which Malcolm does, faster now, part of him wanting to see if he can make J break character, if he'll get bored or annoyed, but he's wearing his bleeding wee heart on his sleeve and everything just seems so  _genuine_ that Malcolm's angry himself, but the anger takes a back seat with J kissing his neck and scratching his back and  _squeezing_  tight around him, and he finishes in a swearing, sweating, disgraced heap on top of this ridiculous, infuriating man.

And that's when the anger sinks in. He didn't want this, didn't fucking  _ask_ for this, he's not  _paying_ for someone to look at him like this, to touch his chest as he gets his breath back and drop a kiss to his throat, and...

He shoves J away.

"I suppose you charge extra for the fucking performance?"

"What?" the boy looks dazed, but it doesn't last long. He shakes his head. "You calling me a fucking cheat? Just what we agreed, okay? What's the-" he looks up at the wall clock, and suddenly tenses up. "Fuck. I've got to go, where's the cash?"

Malcolm pays up, and watches the lad dress, and watches him run from the room. The front door slams. He thinks of Kim, who agreed to marry him but is making him sign a pre-nuptial agreement first, and he thinks of his wee sister, who he's tried to shield from this kind of sleazy... and he thinks of his parents, who'd probably never speak to him again if they knew what he did every Thursday night, but they all, all of them, especially Kim, seem so far away and unreal right now.

He gets up, and showers, and dresses, and waters the plants, which seem (especially the spider plant in the hallway) to be  _judging_ him. But the ritual of looking after the place, feeding the fish, giving the photo frames a quick dust, checking everything is still locked up, brings him slowly back to reality. 

He should phone Kim. Make something up about a bird that got in the house, or a particularly sad-looking yucca, explain what the fuck is taking him so long. He trots into the hallway and picks up the receiver, and then freezes.

On the notepad beside the phone, someone has written, in spiky handwriting, the name  _Jamie,_ and below it a phone number. 

And that's how Malcolm's life as he knows it, as he's planned it out, comes to an end.


	2. Chapter 2

The thing is, Malcolm’s always been in control before. He’s good at it. It’s what he _does_ , how he copes with the world being, as it quite obvious is, utterly fucking insane.

 

He first properly got the universe under his thumb when he was sixteen. That’s when he realised his dad was no longer bigger than him, that he could shout louder than his old man, that he could, if not actually intimidate the violent old bastard, manage to gain enough of an upper hand to get his wee sister out of the house. From there, it’s been easy.

 

He decided he’d be a reporter, so he started writing things and submitting them to local papers, and within a few weeks he was hired. He had his career planned out in front of him, he went for promotions and won them, and by the time he turned twenty-eight last year, he had a house and a car and a girlfriend and a decently-sized diamond ring all ready to drop into her champagne on a trip to Paris. Not bad for a skinny lad from Ferguslie Park. Turns out, if you treat the world like it owes you (because it fucking _does_ ), it has a tendency to cough up its dues.

 

The point being, Malcolm is not used to situations he can’t steer. J is a situation he _cannot fucking steer_.

 

The next time he picks J up, it’s almost midnight. He wasn’t going to do it, wasn’t going to call, but as soon as Kim told him she was spending a long weekend in Belfast for a hen party, he found himself searching his pockets for that scrap of paper. Casual as you like, J told him midnight, by the park, because he had other jobs first, and Malcolm has been unable to get that phrase out of his head for the entire intervening week – _other jobs_. Other men. Other cocks up his arse.

 

Which is fucking stupid, because he obviously knows what J’s job is. He’s probably fucked a hundred strange men since last time, and god knows how many he’s had before that, but the fact that it’s obvious doesn’t make Malcolm any less eager to kick every last one of them to death.

 

As soon as he opens the passenger car door, J tumbles in. He’s dressed in a white shirt, crisp jeans, leather jacket, and while he in no way looks like the street prozzie he is, there’s something dangerously erotic about him, even before he reaches over – without so much as a _hello_ – and unzips Malcolm’s trousers with a horribly practiced one-handed ease.

 

Malcolm drives. He’s taking J back to his own house, which is _stupid_ , the neighbours have a key, and so does his sister, and Kim might come back if her flight is cancelled, but whatever – this whole thing is fucking stupid, so if he’s doing it he might as well do it in spectacular idiotic style. He sneaks glances to his left as Jamie strokes him hard, and tries to remind himself that this, the entire _point_ of paying men for sex, is to remain in control of this unwelcome part of himself, the part that is not included in his plan, but he’s helplessly distracted. J _does_ look freshly fucked, all bruised-lips and tousled hair, Malcolm’s urge to kill rising to new heights when he notices a couple of fading scratches behind J’s ear.

 

“Who was he?” Malcolm asks, before he can stop himself.

 

“Who?”

 

“The last man who…?”

 

“Fuck off,” J snarls, but his hand moves faster, grip tightening a little. The car swerves across the road, Malcolm just managing not to veer into the oncoming lane and offering up a silent prayer of thanks that there’s no one else around at this time of the morning.

 

“Put your seatbelt on.”

 

Bizarrely, J does so, then goes right back to tugging Malcolm off.

 

“What’s your name?” J asks, flashing Malcolm a toothy grin. “I’m not gonnae keep calling you John.”

 

“That’s my name.”

 

“Yeah, yeah. You know how many Johns I know in the real world? Two. You know how many clients I get called John? About eighty percent of ‘em. The other twenty percent are women, they’re more creative.”

 

Malcolm shoots him a glare. Between the handjob and the driving, he doesn’t really have much attention to spare for small talk. Which is fine, because it means he can pretend he isn’t thoroughly lost for words when he looks across at J. He’s got a big-eyed, wild-haired, babyface thing going on, but what really gets Malcolm, what made him stop the first time, what’s making him feel light-headed now, is the fire in those eyes, the intensity and enormity of the _visible_ personality crammed into a stocky wee body, it’s the –

 

“Shit,” Malcolm gasps, sweaty hands sliding on the steering wheel as he forces himself to look back at the road.

 

J is, in addition to Malcolm’s somewhat warped ideal of the perfect male specimen, very good at what he does. He reacts to all Malcolm’s little strangled noises, figuring out fast what he likes and what he needs. Malcolm grits his teeth. He should tell the wee bastard to give it a rest, but he’s so close that he can’t think straight, and there’s no way he can stop this now, no way he can stop any of it.

 

J says, “Come for me, you beautiful, lanky cunt.”

 

That’s not an instruction Malcolm can easily refuse. He does come, all over J’s hand, but the other inevitable thing happens too – his feet slip on the pedals, his hands slide again, he feels his whole body shudder and he feels the car do a horrible little jolt to the left.

 

Then there’s the impact.

 

It’s a lot like being flung out of a catapult into a brick wall, and then dropped unceremoniously onto the floor. A horrible pain rips Malcolm diagonally across the chest, from his sternum to his skull, and his instinct is to flail in a mad effort to do his trousers up; if he’s going to die, he’s not going to be found with his cock out. He can’t quite manage it though, he’s left shaken and sweating as the car skids to a halt, smoke rising from beneath the bonnet, the airbag pathetically half-deployed.

 

The engine pings calmly, and silence settles in.

 

Then, from the seat to Malcolm’s left comes a hideous noise, and he can’t look, he won’t look, he tells himself he’s not going to look, but he’s looking, and there’s J, folded up on himself, head tipped back, making the worst sound Malcolm has ever heard in his life.

 

Malcolm has almost written his entire statement in his head – picked up hitchhiker, swerved to avoid huge dog, no _idea_ where it came from, just leaped out from nowhere, didn’t see the lamppost – when he realises J is actually _laughing_.

 

He’s not just laughing, he’s in hysterics, one trembling hand pointing at Malcolm, the other over his face as he laughs his fucking stupid guts up. Never in his life has Malcolm hated anyone more than he hates J right now, but that really doesn’t explain why he’s laughing too, a low, irresistible belly-laugh that takes hold of him and shakes him until he has to rest his head against the steering wheel because he can’t fucking _breathe_ any more from laughing. J reaches out and sort of pats him weirdly on the shoulder, which just makes things worse, and by the time Malcolm can open his eyes again, they’re red and stinging with tears.

 

The whiplash is setting in too. His neck’s fucked, and he groans, one hand pulling himself back together, the other fumbling for the car door, and he gets it open and tries to get out, but his entire body is made of jelly so he just sort of rolls out onto the tarmac and lies there, looking up at the cloudless night sky. The stars look down on him, judging him; he raises them a two-fingered salute.

 

Back in the car, J howls with irrepressible laughter.

 

And that is, more or less, when he begins to get an inkling just how _fucked_ his life is going to become.


	3. Chapter 3

The car is about as badly damaged as Malcolm’s shoulder, which is dislocated, but at least the shoulder doesn’t cost four hundred pounds and the entire weekend to repair. A very nice male nurse pops it back into place, gives him some strong pain killers, and tells Malcolm’s ‘friend’ to make sure he doesn’t exert himself for a few days. Malcolm’s gratitude doesn’t extend to not wanting to push the nurse out of the fourth-floor window for stealing little glances at J when he thinks Malcolm isn’t looking.

 

J stays for the weekend and charges like bull with a rocket up its arse, but for his money Malcolm gets him for most of Saturday and Sunday. It also costs him a couple of cooked breakfasts and two huge pizza dinners, plus half a dozen videos from Blockbuster, though they never actually get around to watching those. On Friday night he fucks J in the bed it took Kim an hour and a half to pick at Ikea, on the sheets she made him choose, and using the condoms she insists on because she read in a magazine that they’re the safest ones you can buy (he finds himself, somehow, explaining to J that she doesn’t _trust_ contraceptive pills, and gets in return the most withering, most _Catholic_ look he’s ever seen, and then finds himself pinned to the sheets with J’s thighs either side of his face).

 

On Saturday morning, J persuades him to try something he’s never done before, not even with the other men he’s paid. Malcolm bites down on the pillow and tries not to look as if _he’s_ the whore as his knees slide apart, his hips tilt, and J pushes deep, deep inside him, and that’s him sold on the idea. He tries not to see the look of relief on J’s face when he tells him wouldn’t mind doing it that way again in future. It’s another degree of lost control, letting Jamie even _suggest_ … but once you’ve got a bloody rentboy in your marital-bed-to-be, does it honest to God matter how the pieces fit together?

 

Saturday night brings J’s decision to fuck Malcolm in every room in his _prissy, middle-class, shortbread-and-Darjeeling house_. Malcolm points out that he’s fucking _working_ class, fuck you very much, that he’s earned all this with his own ink-stained hands (and Kim’s extraordinary hotel management skills), but J just sneers at him and makes him bend over the bath tub, which – well, at least he’s getting his fucking money’s worth, he tells himself an hour later when he’s flat on his back on the freezing cold kitchen tiles with J’s scalding hot mouth around him.

 

J comes and goes, popping out for a couple of hours on Saturday and Sunday, with the excuse that he has to go and look after his mam, though that doesn’t explain why he returns haunted by the scent of a stranger’s cologne. Malcolm tries very, very hard to be rational about that. It certainly helps that J does come back, and kisses him, and asks if there’s an attic they should be fucking in for the sake of completeness (there is, and they do; Malcolm likes completeness too).

 

It’s the most fucked-up thing he’s ever done, and obviously he vows never, ever to do it again.

 

J finally properly leaves on Monday morning with a pocket full of cash and what Malcolm tries not to think of as a _love bite_ on the side of his neck, beneath his ear, where he noticed J had those scratches. Malcolm carefully tidies up. Kim’s plane is due to land at 11 a.m. and she’ll be back in time to meet him for lunch. The used condoms and the empty food boxes go into one big bin liner, which he puts in the next-door neighbour’s bin, and the sheets go in the wash, and everything gets a damn good scrub, from the bathroom tiles to the dining room floor. He picks up the car, and some things for lunch, and the sense of being in charge of his own life settles back in again as if it never left.

 

By the time he hears Kim’s key in the front door, the house is spotless, every trace of Jamie has been removed, and there’s a lasagne (constructed from Malcolm’s home-made pasta) cooling in the oven.

 

Kim finds him at the dining room table with his nose almost pressed to his laptop screen.

 

“Opticians,” she says, kissing him on the head. She’s been saying it for weeks. He’ll go, eventually, when he finds the time.

 

“How was it?” he asks her. “Did your pack of wanton harlots have fun?”

 

She makes a face, but follows it with a smile. “Brilliant, actually, but you know – Shelly threw up all last night, Belinda couldn’t stop crying about some guy from ten years ago, Tracey dumped us for a shag, and we’ve all gone away hating Jane but we’ll have forgotten why in six weeks’ time. How was your weekend?”

 

Malcolm shrugs. “Wrote five thousand words and deleted four thousand. Can’t nail this fucking piece.”

 

“You’ll get it. What smells good? Did you cook? You’re the best, I’m starved.”

 

Malcolm watches her pile food onto a plate. It’s a comfort, having her back, a reassurance that _this_ is his real life, this tall, slim, beautiful girl with his ring on her finger and his lasagne sauce already smudged up her cheek as she eats with the appetite of the three-day hangover before she’s even back to the table. He shoves his chair out and she sits on his lap, and she feeds him a forkful, and he does his best, he tries his hardest, and he almost succeeds in pushing all thoughts of short, black curls and wide, blue eyes, well and truly out of his mind.

 

The problem is, with Kim sitting there on his lap, he can see the smooth, white arch of her neck and the neat shell of her ear. Kim’s buzzing with something Malcolm realises is the prospect of her own hen-do, and she’s full of plans for the future, plans for the week – a double-date, she insists, with Malcolm’s sister, Megan, and her new boyfriend – _oh don’t call him that, love, he’s not that bad_ – plans to redecorate, to see her uni friends in Edinburgh, to visit his mum, and shop, and eat… real things, normal things, and he’s listening to what she’s saying, he really is, but he’s also envisioning the scruffier, stubblier lines of J’s neck, the scratches beneath his ear, he’s seeing where one’s hand would have to curl around for the nails to make those marks right _there_ , and where, if you were to do that, your thumb would naturally come to rest.

 

Malcolm finds himself agreeing to take Kim’s wee niece and nephew to the pictures on Wednesday afternoon.

 

Meanwhile, half a city away, Jamie has an appointment with a doctor.


	4. Chapter 4

The receptionist recognises Jamie and gives him a warm smile. Apparently that’s the first thing private medical insurance buys you, a cheerful receptionist. He’s certain Gina down at the clinic has never smiled in her life.

 

He takes a seat in the bright, white waiting room, opposite a little old lady in a Dior trouser suit, and next to a young mother with a week-old baby in a pram and the au pair seated on her other side. He’s dressed nondescript, designer jeans and white t-shirt, the smartest jacket he owns, has brought a book to read, and makes an occasional hoarse cough. No one so much as glances at him.

 

The queue moves quickly in here, unlike the clinic. The lass with the bairn is seen by the nurse, the little old lady is called into pathology, and finally the receptionist looks up from her screen and says, “Mr MacDonald? Dr. Lane will see you now.”

 

Jamie knows the way to the office. He knocks on the door with the plaque that says _Dr. Simon Lane_ and lets himself in.

 

“How’s Mrs MacDonald?” is the first thing Dr. Lane always asks, with a kindly smile, as if he’s genuinely interested. _He is_ , Jamie tells himself. _He cares, he does_.

 

Jamie nods and perches himself up on the examination table. “Better this week. I honestly think the stuff is working.”

 

“Good. No more of those funny turns?”

 

“Not since last time. She’s managing the stairs again.”

 

A bright smile lights up the doctor’s face. “Well, that’s splendid progress!” he says.

 

Lane is somewhere in his forties, dark-haired and clean-shaven, dressed today in a flawless grey suit. He’s what people call _conventionally attractive_ , which Jamie translates as _boring_ – in fact, he’s so tidy, so symmetrical, his bone structure is so fine, that if he wanted to he could quit medicine and instead play a doctor in an American TV drama. There’s a stethoscope around his neck, a couple of pens in his pocket, and the most expensive watch Jamie has ever seen on his wrist, just below the shining cufflink. His outfit alone is probably worth what Jamie makes in a year, which just gives Jamie the urge to steal or break something every time he comes here.

 

“So she’ll be wanting another prescription,” says Dr. Lane.

 

Jamie nods slowly. “Look, sir-”

 

“Call me Simon, for heaven’s sake.”

 

“Simon. Okay, listen, look – I’ve had a fucking great weekend, okay? I made a fucking mint. This time, can I maybe just, just _pay_ for the pills? I’ve got cash, I can pay cash. Nothing on the books. I can-”

 

Lane shakes his head a little, sketches an expression of careful confusion across his face.

 

“But sweetheart – why would I want cash? I _have_ money. The idea is that you give me something I _haven’t_ already got.” Lane gets up out of his chair and ambles across the floor to stand in front of the examination table. He’s smiling, he’s _always_ fucking smiling. And he holds out a hand, like he does once every couple of months or so.

 

“Show me.”

 

Jamie produces a crumpled slip of paper from his inside pocket, and shows Lane his clean bill of health from the free clinic downtown. He suspects Lane has access to his medical records, but this is part of the game now. As he reads, Lane slides a possessive hand up and down Jamie’s thigh.

 

“You’re very careful, aren’t you,” he says.

 

“Of course I’m fucking careful, you think anyone’s going to pay a clap-addled whore? That’s my fucking livelihood you’re holding there.”

 

“Nobody else insists the things I insist?”

 

Jamie shrugs. “Some try,” he says. Bareback, every second John tries that one on. The other stuff… occasionally. Rarely. Sheepishly. Jamie always refuses. It’s his prerogative to refuse, and it's his knee in their squashy bits if they can’t take no for a fucking answer.

 

Here, he has little choice, and absolutely no control.

 

Lane kisses him, always so gentle at first, a kiss on the lips, one on the jaw, one right above the pulse-point of his neck. He pushes Jamie’s knee carefully to one side, slides his hand along the inside of Jamie’s thigh, and strokes him through his jeans. Jamie closes his eyes, parts his lips – an expression that suggests he’s enjoying it, while on the inside he tries to summon some degree of arousal. He’s had an easier time getting himself hard for fat old men than he does for Lane.

 

He thinks of the weekend just gone. Of that daft bloke who drove his car into a fucking tree for him, who wanted him to stay, who refused to tell him his name then let him into his house and insisted he sleep beside him. The idiot with the nice house and the nice car and the nice girlfriend and the normal fucking job and those _piercing_ green eyes… Jamie snooped around, obviously, and found out who the stupid bugger is, but he doesn't call him by name, doesn't even  _think it_ , not without permission, so instead he thinks of the way he touches Jamie, the way he looks at him, thinks of how he was compelled, that first time, to kiss his client, something he never does, and the relief, the terror, when M – an initial, that’s safe enough – when he finally kissed Jamie back.

 

This weekend wasn’t much like work. It was more like an illicit fucking _affair_. Utterly ridiculous, and stupid, and dangerous, but Jamie can’t remember the last time someone kissed him like that, stroked his back, touched his hair, like the night was about the two of them together, and not just about the things that money can buy. He shouldn’t be thinking like this, but it’s working, he can feel his pulse quicken, his skin begin to flush. It can’t hurt, can it, to pretend right now, when he desperately needs to, that some of it might have been real?

 

Lane makes an approving little noise, squeezing Jamie’s growing hardness through his jeans, as if he’s responsible for it in any way. Best to let him think that he is. Best just to find a safe place in his own head, as soft and comfortable as possible – _in bed, tangled in blue cotton sheets, with his hand on my chest and his sleeping face pressed against my neck_ – and tell himself that in half an hour this will all be over.

 

* * *

 

 

Jamie’s a damn fine actor. He grins at the receptionist, who asks if he needs to schedule another appointment. She’s flirting with him with just her eyes, the rest of her smart and professional, but the thought of anyone touching him right now makes him dizzy and nauseous. He tells her _aye_ , in a week’s time, yes, same time is fine, thank you. Normally it’s every two weeks, but this time, before he unlocked the door, Lane told him that he’d have news for him by next Monday.

 

 _Just as I promised, sweetheart_.

 

Jamie shivers as he steps outside. He’s got his collar turned up, but he pops into Tie Rack and buys a scarf. At least the weather’s cool enough for it, but he just doesn’t know – he’s never seen Lane quite that far gone before, it’s never hurt quite that much. It’s definitely going to bruise this time, but how fast, and exactly where, and exactly how horribly, he can’t begin to guess.

 

The scarf and the coat and the jeans make him feel like a yuppie. The burn in his lungs makes him feel like a crack addict. He moves quickly, takes the underground, does his best to blend in, to become just another face, just another commuter heading home for the day. 

 

Back home, he has a very hot shower, scrubs himself all over, and checks himself in the mirror; purple marks already flourishing low on his throat, and a desperate need for a haircut. He changes into his old, comfy jeans and a roll-neck jumper until he has time to go out and get involved in a pub fight, hide bruises with bruises. Pain in the fucking arse. He won’t be able to work until his skin clears, but he’s got enough cash to get them through – he pulls the carefully rolled twenties out of his pocket and puts them in the drawer of his bedside table. He wishes, briefly, that he’d gotten M’s number – but that’s just beyond fucking unprofessional.

 

As soon as he feels like himself again, he knocks on the door of the bedroom at the end of the hall, and listens for a response. After a moment, he cracks the door and peers inside.

 

His mum is sleeping. Jamie watches, eyes adjusting to the dimness, for the rise and fall of her narrow chest. Once content she’s resting peacefully, he tiptoes inside and places the new packet of pills on the table beside her jug of water, and retreats, silently, to the safety of his own room.


	5. Chapter 5

Malcolm is, obviously, not going to call J again. Seeing the same guy three times is silly, if he’s going to keep on doing this he should move around the city, pick a different person each time, and hope they forget his face within an hour. That was the original plan, and it’s still the safest option, bar _not ever_ putting his dick in someone who isn’t his fiancée again.

 

So, equally obviously, he calls J next time he’s heading out to look after his cousin’s place. There’s no answer, which naturally means that he was _right_ , and on the way out he instead stops and negotiates and picks up a slim, dark-haired guy, a little younger, a little softer than J. Malcolm fucks the lad over the back of the sofa, ensuring the judgemental spider plant gets a bloody good eyeful, then repents by arranging his cousin’s post in date order on the table beside the door.

 

It’s a week before J answers his phone, and Malcolm wants to ask him where he’s been, what he’s been doing, who he’s been seeing, but he can’t. J gives him directions to a bridge, tells him to park his car beneath it at two in the morning. It’s a bit fucking weird, but Malcolm leaves Kim sleeping in soft, blue sheets, wraps himself in coat and scarf, and heads out into the night.

 

Wispy little clouds move quickly across the moon, and the air feels thin and cold and crisp, the scent of winter in the air. Malcolm stands beneath the bridge, wide eyes gazing into the dark, until a shadow comes towards him, moving faster than it first appeared, and there’s J, his silhouette unmistakable to Malcolm anywhere. He wears the same half-grin as ever, but there’s something a little ragged about it, something a little weary, noticeable even though J keeps to the shadows near the wall.

 

Malcolm reaches for him, runs his hands up J’s arms, strokes long hair away from his face. J blinks a few times, those ridiculous eyes fixed on Malcolm’s face, and they kiss, both of them moving into it together, J’s arms looping around Malcolm’s neck, holding him, trapping him, almost as if he wants to keep them together and never let go. Malcolm backs J up against the wall, one hand fumbling between them, stroking up J’s thigh, but he gets the hand knocked away and J rounds on him, hands on his chest, shoving him back against the bricks. He kisses him again quickly, then steps away.

 

“I haven’t got time,” says J. “Eighty quid, blow job. I have to go.”

 

“What the fuck do you mean? Go where?”

 

“None of your fucking business. Do you want it or not?”

 

“No! I mean, yes – fuck, I… No, I want to… I can’t take you home. But the first place I took you, I still have the key, we can go there again-”

 

“What part of _fuck off_ don’t you understand? I’ve got ten minutes, and they’re yours for a hundred and twenty. That’s inflation, by the way. Make your mind up or it’ll inflate again.”

 

Malcolm kisses him once more, and J melts into it for all of two seconds before shoving him off again. He unzips Malcolm with that startling speed, and sinks to his knees on the wet paving stones.

 

J works quickly and skilfully, but there’s none of the fun or enthusiasm he showed during their weekend together. When Malcolm comes, it feels more like the relief of getting off a theme park ride you weren’t really enjoying, but he doesn’t say anything as he pays up.

 

J kisses him quickly on the neck, and turns to go.

 

“Wait – Jamie.”

 

The lad freezes, looks back at him with a startled expression. Malcolm gives himself a thorough mental bollocking.

 

“I mean… J. Listen. I want to see you again, properly. When are you free?”

 

“I’m not.”

 

“What, are you fucking booked out until you fucking die or something?”

 

A little shrug from J sends a tentative but definite fissure through Malcolm’s heart.

 

“There are _other people_ who’ll fuck you for money, love. Try one of them.”

 

“I have. It’s not the same.”

 

J’s mouth opens, probably wondering (just as Malcolm is, in fact) what the hell _that_ was a confession of, but he regroups quickly and a white grin flashes in the dark.

 

“Obviously,” he says, radiating professional pride.

 

“Friday?”

 

“No. Uh, look, I might be able to give you a night next week, next Tuesday. A week today, can you cope that long without me?”

 

“I guess I’ll fucking have to. I’ll call you.”

 

J nods slowly, his gaze trailing up and down Malcolm’s body, making him feel exposed and excited all at once. Christ, the degree to which he _wants_ this man is absurd…

 

“Go back to your girlfriend,” J says.

 

“Go back to your pimp,” Malcolm snaps at his retreating back.

 

J flips him off, and vanishes into the night.

 

Back home, Malcolm slips back into bed without waking Kim. She makes a snuffly little sleepy noise and burrows her face into his shoulder, arm around his waist. He holds her, and sleeps restlessly until morning, when he wakes to find her gone.

 

She’s downstairs at the kitchen table with a bacon sandwich, a steaming mug of tea, and the A4 notebook in which she keeps track of their joint bank account. There’s that strange little smile on her face too, the one that reminds Malcolm why he loves her. What’s not to love about a woman with a hard-on for maths?

 

“Freak,” Malcolm mutters, kissing her on the ear.

 

She slaps him playfully on the back of his thigh. “Fuck off. Actually, don’t fuck off before you pass me the ketchup.”

 

He makes his own tea, and is about to sit down when he remembers something important. He peers across at the date on the bank statement she’s working from, but it’s too late, the smile has disappeared from her face, replaced with a little scowl of concentration. He tries to think fast.

 

“There’s money missing,” Kim says, around a mouthful of bacon.

 

“I told you about the car.”

 

“Yeah, yeah. It’s not that. Same weekend though. About a hundred and fifty quid, all up.”

 

It’s a hundred and sixty, actually, and Malcolm cannot believe he allowed himself to forget about it. He’s been paying J and the others from his own account, where he has, officially, some savings from his teens, some money left to him by a dead great-aunt, and, unofficially, the difference of a pay rise he received a few months ago and hasn’t told her about. It’s not an account he can draw from freely, no cashcard or cheque book, he has to physically go to the bank to make a withdrawal. Except, when J stayed the weekend, he found himself short on Sunday morning, and had to make a few payments from the joint account.

 

The best lies are the ones that are almost the truth.

 

“Ah,” he says, “that was me. Megs came round.”

 

Kim does a little eye-roll thing at him. She adores Malcolm’s wee sister, she really does, and Malcolm loves her for it – Meg’s going to be a bridesmaid along with Kim’s own two sisters. But it’s a convenient truth that the Tucker siblings are a terrible influence on each other. Kim is no doubt imagining the chaos – whisky and beer and pizza and fighting about stupid shit that happened fifteen years ago that neither of them actually remembers correctly, awful hangovers and medicinal hair-of-the-dog drinking at ten a.m. Megan is twenty-one, and, in the words of Malcolm’s mum, will never amount to anything whatsoever. He knows better. He’s seen her put away a whole bottle of vodka then flawlessly recite Shakespeare while keeping her balance on the table. Someone like that, the whole world is their suspiciously textured sea-creature. She also makes for a very good excuse for any erratic behaviour, though he does make a mental note to warn her he’s using her as an alibi again.

 

“Nothing got broken,” Kim says, as if it’s an accusation. She glances around in case she’s missed something. “Quiet one, was it?”

 

“Well. There was the car…”

 

She jabs the pen at him. “I _knew_ there was more to that. She was bloody well driving it, wasn’t she?”

 

“No! No. She was just being a brat, distracting me. Worked too fucking well. Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you-“

 

“No you aren’t. The pair of you can either account for that cash, or put it back, okay?”

 

“Obviously.” Malcolm steals a piece of bacon from her, and slinks off to get ready for work.

 

**

 

Jamie wakes to the sounds of people downstairs – the rumble of the kettle boiling, his mum’s careful, shuffling footsteps, and a voice, a horribly familiar voice, soft and calm and English, the words impossible to make out. Jamie grabs for his watch – it’s already nine-thirty in the morning, he’s overslept, and he’s allowed his mum to be alone with _him_.

 

No time for a shower or shave, just fresh clothes and deodorant, which is fine anyway. Then he practically tumbles down the stairs and into the lounge.

 

Dr. Lane is sitting in Jamie’s dad’s armchair, leaning forward with a fresh mug of tea in his hands. Jamie’s mum is opposite, on the sofa, smiling the same way she does when she’s telling Jamie a story about his dad and pretending those were the happiest days of her life. He’d quite like to just pick up a heavy vase and smash it across the back of Lane’s head, but there’s a couple of problems with that.

 

“Good morning, dear,” his mum purrs, patting the seat beside her. Jamie dutifully sits, and dutifully smiles at Lane.

 

“Hey, doc.”

 

“James. How are you?”

 

Jamie is actually okay. It’s the first day he’s woken without an ache in his bones since he last saw the man.

 

“He works nights,” his mum explains, all parental pride while still managing a disapproving glance at his stubbly jaw. “Hence looking like a plague victim in the mornings.”

 

Lane gives him a once-over, the corner of his lip rising in a tiny sneer that only Jamie could ever notice. But when he speaks, he’s nothing other than warm and professional.

 

“I was just explaining to Mrs MacDonald the details of the clinical trial. Obviously, there is a fifty percent chance that your mum will be receiving a placebo, but if the trial is positively successful, all participants will be switched to the actual drug. So this really is a fantastic opportunity.”

 

Jamie nods as though he’s hearing this for the first time. In actual fact, his mum _will_ be receiving the active drug from the start. Lane promised him that, and whatever the fuck else he is, he’s not a liar, and he keeps his word. Jamie wouldn’t be humiliating himself for a fucking _maybe_. He sits and listens, nods along, and when the paperwork comes out, he goes through it with his mum while Lane watches him in the same way a cat watches a bird through the window. There are a few more practical questions – times and dates, what she can and can’t eat, how she’s likely to feel throughout the treatment. After an hour or so, Jamie can see her flagging. Sitting up and talking and smiling is enough to exhaust her these days. He helps her back up the stairs and into bed.

 

Lane is waiting for him in the kitchen when he comes back down.

 

“We need to discuss terms.”

 

Jamie stares at him. There’s a certain amount of shit he’ll take when he’s in Lane’s territory, but this house, this street, this entire estate is _his_. “What fucking _terms_?” he snaps.

 

Lane spreads his hands, shrugs as if that’s obvious. “Payment.”

 

“I’m fucking _constantly_ paying you. What more do you fucking want?”

 

“I think you’re confused. Everything so far has been about goods for services, hasn’t it? You do what I want, I give you the pills. The old pills. The ones that won’t work forever. Now that we’ve got your mum onto the trial, well… I believe in this new drug, I honestly do. It’ll do wonders for her, she’ll be like a new woman. No more exhaustion, no more pain, and you won’t have to worry so much, will you? She might even be able to go back to work, and that will mean you’ll have more free time, won’t it?”

 

Jamie finds himself backing away, and forces himself to stop and stand his ground. He folds his arms.

 

“Like I said – what do you fucking _want_? I offered you cash, you already take whatever the fuck you want from me-”

 

“Yes. I do. On regularly scheduled appointments, often after two or three other men have already taken what they wanted. And what does that leave for me?” Lane steps into his personal space; Jamie braces himself and doesn’t shift.

 

“I care about you, James. I do. I can’t stand the thought of you out there every night, of _other_ men… So I’ll give you a few weeks to sort out whatever you need to do to extract yourself from that situation. When the drug trial begins, you’re mine and mine alone. We’ll find a few more interesting ways to spend our time together, and you will continue to do as I ask. Do you understand?”

 

Jamie thinks of his mum, and her grey face, and the chest pains, and the tiredness, of how she always looked after him no matter what it cost her, of countless nights when he'd eat his dinner and ask where hers was and she'd say she wasn't hungry, and how wee ignorant Jamie thought she was so silly, because she'd always finish whatever he left on his plate, so she _must_ have been hungry really...

 

He nods. He'll do anything.

 

“Good boy. One more thing – tidy yourself up. Get a proper razor, for heaven’s sake. Do you have money?”

 

“Not really.”

 

“Here.” Lane pulls out his wallet and counts out several fifties. When proffered, Jamie just stares at them, so Lane puts them down on the kitchen counter. “Pride isn’t charming. Get some decent clothes. Sort yourself out. If I come round without calling, I don’t want to find you like… _this_. All right? You are beautiful, James; try to behave like it.”

 

Lane kisses him, and Jamie proves his acting talents again by leaning into it, stroking a hand down Lane’s chest as though he appreciates the back-handed compliment.

 

Then the doctor leaves. Jamie thinks about putting the money in the oven and turning it on full heat, but there are bills due, and he _does_ need new shirts. It makes him feel a bit sick, but he pockets the fifties, makes himself some toast, and retreats to the lounge where he sits with his feet up on the sofa, his knees tucked under his chin, and wishes the phone would ring.


	6. Chapter 6

Tuesday turns out to be a good day to meet J. It’s Kim’s day off, and she takes herself off to Edinburgh to stay the night with her mum and her youngest sister. Malcolm makes a token effort at inviting himself along, but she laughs at him.

 

“Nope. Secret women’s business.”

 

“What the fuck does that mean? Are you gonnae go dancing round Arthur’s Seat in the nude at midnight?”

 

“Wedding dress shopping, dumbfuck. And you’re not getting out of work that easily. I’ve been watching you, you’re distracted lately. Don’t get in trouble, we can’t afford it.”

 

“I’m not in-”

 

“You’ll tell me if you get cold feet, won’t you?”

 

“What?” Malcolm looks at his feet, making Kim laugh. He loves her laugh, he honestly does. Better than J’s fucking death-rattle. “I’ve not got cold anything where you’re concerned, sweet.”

 

“Smooth bastard.”

 

“Go on then, off you fuck, get something backless and fucking sexy, okay?”

 

“Yeah, mum’ll love that. Actually I’ve already picked it. It’s chin-to-toe laminate flooring, in dark beige. Cheap as chips, easy to clean, you can even bleach me if you want to. Lace trimmings. Classy as fuck.”

 

As soon as she’s gone, Malcolm calls Jamie to confirm this afternoon. On the phone, he sounds much more like his old self again, flirting and teasing, and Malcolm has to hang up on him, take himself to the bathroom, and have a good, hard shower-wank before he can get his act together.

 

He does get some work done, and then, as six o’clock rolls around, he finds himself in front of the mirror wondering if J might prefer him in the blue shirt or the white.

 

“Fucking idiot,” he mutters at his reflection, but he thinks the white might be better with his green eyes.

 

Jamie is waiting. He jumps in the car, flashes Malcolm one of those incredible grins, and reaches across the handbrake.

 

“No you fucking don’t,” Malcolm swats his hand away. He glances sideways at J. He seems to have made an effort tonight too – new shirt, expensive jeans, he’s even bothered to shave properly for the first time since Malcolm met him. He looks, all round, remarkably sleek and handsome. The only thing Malcolm can’t help mentioning is –

 

“You cut your hair.”

 

J’s eyes narrow. “So?” he snaps.

 

“What?”

 

“Yeah I cut my fucking hair – what’s it to you?”

 

Malcolm frowns at him. “I just preferred it long, that’s all.”

 

There’s a horrible moment where J reaches for the door handle and Malcolm thinks he might actually throw himself out of the moving car.

 

“What the fuck has it fucking got to do with you?” J snarls, practically coming up out of his seat. “Are you trying to fucking tell me how I ought to _look_? What the _fuck_ is your problem, you scrawny, suburban fucking couscous-eating fascist _fuck_?”

 

Malcolm slams on the brakes. J has to clutch onto his seatbelt to avoid hitting his face on the glovebox, while some way behind them, a horn sounds. Malcolm ignores it.

 

“What’s _my_ fucking problem? What the fuck was _that_? Are you having some kind of personality crisis? I was voicing a fucking _opinion_ , all right? I couldn’t honestly give two shits about your fucking hair. All right?”

 

“Maybe I didn’t want it long,” Jamie snaps.

 

“Well _obviously_ , I’m guessing that’s why you had it fucking _cut_. Are we done? Is this little theatrical performance fucking over yet?”

 

J folds his arms and glares out of the passenger-side window. Malcolm drives. The air between them frazzles with electrical energy.

 

Malcolm’s taking J to his cousin’s place again. Ed and Elizabeth are travelling the world with a few weeks yet to go before they return, so he figures he should make the most of it, and avoid the unnecessary risk of taking J to his own home again. Kim’s bound to notice someone’s been eating the jam out of the jar with their fingers, which he still cannot fucking _believe_ …

 

“I’m sorry,” says J, as they approach the house.

 

“What?” Malcolm glances at him.

 

“I’m not fucking saying it again. It just… it doesnae fucking matter. Just forget it.”

 

Malcolm reaches across and rubs a hand up the inside of J’s thigh. J squeezes his fingers, guides his hand higher, and Malcolm manages, through some feat of genius, to park the car one-handed.

 

They get as far as the front door, Malcolm with the key in one hand and the front of J’s shirt in the other, pushing him up against the wall and kissing him. J grabs him, pulls him close, a hand squeezing his arse and the other in Malcolm’s hair, stroking and tugging, making him groan low and deep. Malcolm does another one-handed magic trick and gets the front door open. He chucks the keys at the table, manhandles J inside, and then finds the tables turned when J crowds him up against the wall, pressing up against him and kissing him like they’re old, re-united lovers in some black-and-white film.

 

Then, to Malcolm’s left, a horribly familiar voice says, “I fuckin’ _knew_ it!”

 

*****

 

Jamie was holding so tightly onto Malcolm that he almost drops to the floor when Malcolm leaps away from him. He gropes at the wall to help him stay upright, and, acting on pure instinct, tries to inch towards the door.

 

Malcolm and the girl are stuck in a strange glare-off, him furious, defensive, and she weirdly triumphant, pointing at him with a spoon, cereal bowl in the other hand. At first Jamie assumed this was the fiancée, but it doesn’t take him long to figure out – _sister_.

 

“What,” Malcolm growls, “the _fuck_ are you doing?”

 

“Nothing as cute as what you’re apparently doing.” She grins a nasty little grin, puts the spoon back in the bowl, and holds out a hand to Jamie. “I’m Megan. You just han your hand down my brother’s trousers. Actually, eew,” she adds, and withdraws the hand just as he was about to shake it.

 

You'd never match them as siblings without contextual clues. Megan is short and chubby and wears a perpetual grin, open and friendly, the kind of person you can’t help smiling back at. Jamie can’t see any physical resemblance between them at all, but everything about the way they talk and act betrays a shared childhood – or half-shared, at any rate, since Megan seems several years younger. She’s dressed in nothing more than a crop-top and lacy knickers, apparently having just rolled out of bed at seven in the afternoon, and Jamie can see a flash of some unidentifiable tattoo on her hip. He tries to get a better look.

 

Malcolm’s gone dark red with several conflicting emotions, but he finally settles on one of them as his immediate priority. He’s positioned himself carefully between Jamie and Megan, and appears to have some kind of psychic sense, moving his whole body when Jamie tries to peer around at her.

 

“Put this on,” Malcolm snaps, throwing his coat at Megan. She makes a face at him, and chucks it on the stairs.

 

“I don’t think your pal’s interested in _my_ undies, Malc.”

 

“I like girls too,” Jamie supplies.

 

“Shut the fuck up. Look away or I will crush your skull like an egg with a face drawn on it, I’m not remotely joking. Megs, what the _fuck_ are you doing here?”

 

Megan shrugs. “Watering the plants?”

 

“Try again. Are you _living_ here?”

 

“Um, why am _I_ the one having to explain myself? You’re the one having it off with mister Blue-Eyes here. You’ve always been quick off the fucking mark, Malc, but an affair _already_?”

 

Malcolm’s turned a rather alarming shade of purple. “It’s _not_ a – he’s…” then he stops, apparently having realised the truth sounds even worse.

 

Megan shrugs, suddenly and jarringly bored of them. “Whatever. Carry on. Try to keep the noise down.”

 

She trots off through the lounge and towards the kitchen. Jamie grins, relieved, and puts his arms around Malcolm from behind, kisses his ear, hitches up his shirt.

 

“Come on then, upstairs.”

 

Malcolm elbows him off. “That’s my fucking _sister_. Look, sorry, just… you go up. I’ll get rid of her.”

 

Malcolm ignores Jamie’s pathetic little whimper, and follows Megan through to the kitchen, where she’s refilling her bowl with cereal.

 

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

 

“Right. And you’re here with Kim’s blessing, eh?”

 

“I can handle my own shit. Why aren’t you at your place?”

 

Megan shrugs, shovels cereal into her mouth and talks around it. “I left Ben.”

 

“Good, he’s a stretched-out, over-fucked cunt.”

 

“Fuck you.”

 

“You should be at mum’s, then. Ed will kill us when he gets back.”

 

“He’ll kill you more.”

 

“Megs-“

 

“Malc.” Megan’s face is doing the puffy red thing it does before she cries, but she’s fighting it. She always enjoys his problems as a distraction from her own.

 

“Knew you were a poof.”

 

“Fuck _off_. I’m not.”

 

“Right. You were just checking his filling hadn’t come loose with your tongue. Are you leaving Kim?”

 

“Christ, no! If you tell anyone-”

 

“You’ll kill me. I know.”

 

“Oh, no. Here’s the deal. Anyone you tell about this, I will tell those same people you caught the fucking clap off that troll from your school who shags those little rat dogs his mum keeps. Got it?”

 

“Oh. That’s Freddie,” says Megan, despondently. “Fine. I won’t tell. But this is fucked up, Malc.”

 

“You’ve got no idea. But just back me up on this, okay? I’ll owe you. Now you tell me what the fuck Ben did to you.”

 

She shakes her head and sniffs hideously. “Not yet. Can I stay at your place?”

 

Malcolm decides that’s a reasonable compromise, and he might even stand a chance of getting the story out of her tomorrow. Kim won’t be pleased, but he’s more interested in the sounds of J upstairs, moving around, and, by the sound of it, using the shower. Megan follows his gaze upwards, and smirks.

 

“Shag his brains out.”

 

“Get out.”

 

Malcolm leaves Megan to tidy up and gather her stuff, and heads up the stairs, his blood already starting to heat in his veins. He finds J in the bedroom, his hair wet from the shower, sitting on a towel on the side of the bed. He looks like he’s just heard something awful, but he smiles when Malcolm shuts the bedroom door behind him, and they’re finally alone.

 

“Did you bring cash?” J asks.

 

Malcolm shrugs. Once they’re both clear on the price, they don’t usually talk about money until afterwards, and the price of a fuck was spelled out at the start.

 

“Obviously. Why, do you only take cheques now or something?”

 

“No.” Jamie stands, pads across the floor towards him stark naked. Malcolm can’t help staring. Jamie’s small, slim in a way that suggests he hasn’t had much opportunity for big meals, a scattering of dark hair across his chest, trailing down to his belly, down… he’s half-hard, but that seems to be his natural state from what Malcolm’s seen. Malcolm bites his lip. There’s a drop of water slowly working its way over J’s hip, and Malcolm has the overwhelming urge to drop to his knees on the carpet and lick it off. He’d do it, too, except J holds his gaze and slowly, deliberately, unbuttons Malcolm’s shirt.

 

“I don’t want your money,” he says.

 

“What?” Malcolm’s lost for words, which is rare enough, but he’s also lost for thoughts. He doesn’t have the faintest clue how to respond to that. He settles rather stupidly on saying, “But this is your job…”

 

“Tuesday’s my night off.”

 

“You didn’t mention that before.”

 

J leans up and brushes his lips across Malcolm’s, trails gentle fingers up and down his ribs. “Tell me you don’t want this, then. You only have to fucking say it, and you can keep right on paying me, and I’ll keep right on calling you fucking _John_ or whatever the fuck.”

 

“Oh shitting hell…”

 

It’s as though Malcolm was happily crossing a bridge which has been suddenly pulled out from beneath him and replaced with an unsteady tightrope. This is not what he intended to happen, but he’s lost anything he might ever have had resembling control of this situation. He presses his lips to J’s mouth, his jaw, his throat, and he knows that this right here, this moment, this is his cue to get the fuck out, to stop this nonsense – everything up until now has been understandable. Marriage is fucking _huge_ , heaps of men shag around before committing themselves to a settled, monogamous life, he wouldn’t be remotely alone in that situation, and he’s figured all along that so long as he stops before the wedding, it’s nothing to beat himself up about.

 

The problem is, he can’t imagine ever letting Jamie go.

 

Whatever he thinks, it doesn’t matter, he’s not even got control of his own body. He’s kissing Jamie all over, getting down on his knees to kiss his chest and belly and sweep his tongue across his hipbone, and bury his face in the place where hip becomes thigh. Jamie strokes his hair and murmurs stupid little encouragements, and Malcolm kisses him again, pressing his lips against the inside of Jamie’s thigh, and tells him, “My name’s Malcolm.”

 

“I know, you stupid twat, you let me into your house.”

 

Malcolm bites him, gently, playfully, enjoying the little shiver that ripples through him. He grabs J by the hips and lets his mouth wander, and when Jamie gasps _Malcolm!_ it might as well be the signature on both their death warrants.

 

The sheets are soft and cool, and Jamie is hard and hot and strong, and it’s so easy, in his arms, to forget there’s a world outside, forget his job and his girl and his family, things he’s never before _wanted_ to forget, things he’s supposed to value. Right now, none of them exist. Jamie never shuts his eyes, always looking at him, always half-startled and completely enthralled, and so, _so_ fucking beautiful it’s almost painful. It was never supposed to go like this, this wasn’t supposed to happen, he wasn’t supposed to… but there’s no undoing it now. Jamie fucks him deep and slow, and Malcolm can’t stop kissing him, and it’s _hours_ later when they finally lie in an exhausted, sweat-soaked heap in the middle of the bed.

 

Malcolm can’t keep his thoughts to himself when it comes to Jamie. He reaches out and touches a yellowing bruise near his nipple. Jamie moves his hand away, but keeps hold of it for a moment, affectionate, attempting to distract…

 

“Who fucking _does_ this to you?” Malcolm asks.

 

Jamie just shakes his head, runs his foot up the inside of Malcolm’s thigh, tickling him with his toe. “No one. I just bruise easy.”

 

“No you don’t. I bite you all the time. I’ve never bruised you, have I?”

 

“Forget about it. Please.”

 

That request, so gently asked, has the opposite effect, but Malcolm doesn’t push it any further for the moment.

 

He pushes something else, instead, doodling little patterns across Jamie’s ribs with his fingertips as they talk.

 

“Your day off, eh?”

 

“Yeah, even whores need a break.”

 

“Don’t call yourself that.”

 

“Fuck off. I know what I am.”

 

“A whore who doesn’t want to be paid.”

 

Jamie rolls over, leans over Malcolm, bracing himself on one arm, and looks down at him, all wide-eyed seriousness.

 

“I just fucking like you, okay?”

 

“Well, I _am_ a likable guy.”

 

“You’re a cunt. You should be with your girlfriend right now.”

 

“Well, I’m not. I’m here.”

 

“She even know you like cock?”

 

“Don’t be fucking stupid.”

 

Silence settles in, Malcolm letting his fingers explore, Jamie enjoying it, occasionally sighing in contentment.

 

“So.” Malcolm finds a particularly sensitive, ticklish spot between Jamie’s ribs and torments him a little. “You don’t have a girlfriend?”

 

“No.”

 

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

 

Jamie gives him a weird look, but says, “No.”

 

“So there’s no one? Just clients? Nobody else who doesn’t pay you?”

 

Jamie moves his hand again, and snuggles in close. Rests his head on Malcolm’s chest, and makes a happy little sound when Malcolm puts an arm around him.

 

“No one,” he says, carefully, “except you. There’s another _alternate_ arrangement, but he still pays for it in a way.”

 

“The fuck does that mean?”

 

“Nothing much.”

 

“Tell me.”

 

“Jealous?” Jamie purrs.

 

“Actually, yes I fucking am. Of every single one of the cunts.”

 

“Good,” says Jamie, and there’s a note of genuine satisfaction that Malcolm doesn’t have a clue how to interpret.

 

“Stay the night,” Malcolm says.

 

“I can’t.”

 

“I thought we just established there’s no other bastard tonight but me, what happened to that in the space of twelve seconds?”

 

Jamie nuzzles against his throat, kisses him. “I told you. I look after my mam. She’s expecting me.”

 

“Ach, well, if your _mammy_ ’s expecting you…”

 

Jamie shuts him up by sliding a hand down low and stroking him. “Didn’t say she was expecting me _yet_.”

 

Malcolm takes him by the wrist, moves it away. Jamie gives him a questioning look, slightly worried, but Malcolm kisses him, then shifts them, moving on top and shuffling down the bed.

 

“It’s your night off,” He says, with the wicked grin of a man who knows just how fucking _good_ he is. “So let me do the work.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter comes with a non-con trigger warning

On Wednesday, Malcolm comes home from the office to find Kim still gone, and Megan in her place on the sofa. The house is alarmingly tidy, and in fact the only thing he can find to shout at her about is that she’s managed to eat the entire casserole he’d made for himself and has finished off the last couple of beers he had in the fridge. He makes himself a sandwich and a cup of tea instead, and sits at the other end of the sofa with his notebooks, and pretends to be blind and deaf when Megan pulls all the videos off the shelf. She holds up two and waves them until she gets his attention.

 

“ _Genesis of the Daleks_?” she asks. “Or… _Fang Rock_?”

 

“Don’t ask stupid questions.”

 

“Right,” she says, and puts on _Genesis,_ and drags a blanket from the cupboard and curls up beside him. “Can they arrest you for recording things off the telly?”

 

“What?”

 

“I mean, like… isn’t that like photocopying a book then returning it to the shop?”

 

“Shut up.”

 

“I don’t like Sylvester McCoy.”

 

“That’s because you’re an idiot.”

 

She chatters on, stupid inane things, and Malcolm flings back casual insults, and neither of them actually pays any attention to the video, though the familiar voices and sound effects are comforting.

 

Eventually, she falls silent, and he says, “I’ve thought of nineteen different ways to torture and maim Ben. I just need you to tell me what he did so I can decide which is most appropriate.”

 

Megan burrows deeper beneath her blanket. “He didn’t do anything. I just got sick of him. He’s so fucking _old_. And he started talking about boring shit like getting married and having children.”

 

“Already?”

 

“Aye. I’m not gonnae end up like you, all miserable and sneaking around.”

 

“I’m not miserable-”

 

“So why isn’t Kim home?”

 

He glares at her until she looks away and pretends to watch the TV. Tom Baker is soliloquising, but Malcolm can’t really hear any of the words. He gets up, trots into the hallway, and picks up the phone.

 

Kim’s mum answers, as curt as usual, and puts her on.

 

“Sorry, Malc,” Kim says. “I decided to take a few days off. See my family and that.”

 

“And you lectured _me_ about work?”

 

“Look, I just… You know I can’t stand your ugly old city. I sent you post yesterday, did you get it?”

 

Megan has piled the day’s post on the table beside the door. Malcolm can’t reach it without putting the phone down, so he shrugs.

 

“No idea.”

 

“Have a look. And seriously think about it, okay?”

 

A cold, prickly feeling niggles at his gut as she tells him, in a slightly odd tone, about her day, tells him she _does_ love him, and that she’ll be back before the weekend. He hangs up, picks up the post, and takes it back through to the lounge.

 

“She goes away a lot,” says Megan.

 

“Shut up.”

 

“Stop telling me to shut up. Hey, tell me about all this gay sex you’ve been having?”

 

Malcolm ignores her. There is an envelope postmarked Edinburgh, and inside are several newspaper cuttings of job advertisements, one of which has been circled and highlighted. It actually sounds pretty decent – an opening for a press officer at some Caledonian extension of the many spidery arms of Westminster. There are others, editing jobs, PR, nothing too interesting, all based in Edinburgh. Options. At the bottom is a slip of paper, with Kim’s flowing handwriting on it.

 

_Homesick. I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you first. Think about this for me? K xxx_

 

She’s pressed her lips to the paper with fresh lipstick on, leaving a kiss mark, like she used to do on her letters when they first met and she was away at uni.

 

“She wants me to move tae Edinburgh,” he tells Megan, who makes a face.

 

“Don’t.”

 

“Right, okay, so you’re the relationship guru, are you?”

 

“Out of the two of us? Yes.”

 

“Fine. Why not go to fucking Edinburgh? Better job prospects-”

 

“Bollocks. You’ve gone poncy enough as it is. And what about,” she insists, poking him in the ribs, “your _boyfriend_?”

 

“Will you fuck _off_ about that?”

 

“So it was a one-night stand, then?”

 

He glares at her, and she looks back up at him with their delinquent father’s brown eyes, and he turns his back on her and strides into the kitchen. He hears the volume creep down on the television. A few moments later, he comes back into the lounge with a tray, on which is a large bottle of vodka, two glasses of chilled water, and the little tub of Creamola Foam from its hiding place at the back of the cupboard. Megan’s face lights up, and she pulls her feet up on the sofa, making space for him again.

 

It’s what they used to do when he was freshly moved out of home, and she was a teenager, and neither of them really had anybody else to talk to. And he wants, quite desperately right now, someone to talk to. But first, alcohol.

 

“Pink flavour!” Megan shouts, grabbing the tub and prying off the lid.

 

“If you get that shit on my furniture-”

 

“Yeah, yeah, you fucking bourgeois twat. Give me that spoon.”

 

He gets her to talk first, which is easy with her verbal incontinence, and he hears all about how Ben wants to do this, and Ben wants to do that, an endless stream of fucking _boring_ middle-class male twattery that all just reaffirms his instincts that Ben – who is pushing thirty, the fucking _creep_ – needs to be made gone, and soon.

 

“What we do, kiddo, is we ruin his fucking life.”

 

“Okay. Why?”

 

“Why? Because he’s pressurising you. And he’s a cunt. And I want to fucking _do_ something.”

 

“Okay. How?”

 

“We get Jamie involved, right-”

 

“Your boyfriend.”

 

“Stop _saying_ that – listen, Megs, this is an integral part of the plan, don’t fucking laugh, I’m not a, a _customer_ , okay, but he’s a prostitute.”

 

“Oh fuck off. Now you’re having me on. Even you aren’t that much of a fucking moron.”

 

“We get Jamie to pretend Ben’s a client, we send evidence to his boss, and he gets the fucking sack.”

 

“For being the same sort of weirdo perv creep as you? Except he isn’t, and you actually are? A fucking _rentboy_ , Malc?”

 

“Are you getting fucking judgemental on me? I told you, I don’t pay-”

 

Megan is all-out laughing at him now, sloshing booze all over the carpet. “You are so fucking _screwed!_ You know Kim’s gonnae find out, right?”

 

“As I’ve only told one person, I’ll know who to shove off a fucking bridge if she does.”

 

“Oi – you know what? You should tell this whole thing to Dad. Your big gay prozzie adventure. Go on, call him and tell him now.”

 

“Right, cause what I urgently need is to have my bollocks torn off-”

 

“Yeah, no – cause then he’ll have that hideous stroke he’s been working on. It’ll be great.”

 

The mood takes a downwards turn after that, as it tends to when their father is invoked. Malcolm can practically see Megan kicking herself for mentioning him, which might be why he gives her a proper answer to the next question.

 

“Do you love this Jamie guy?” she asks, proving that she really is still just a kid.

 

And the only proper answer is, “I don’t know,” admitted quietly, while staring down into the vodka bottle.

 

***

 

Call him sentimental – well, he’ll probably headbutt you… Nevertheless, call Jamie sentimental, but he decides to give his regular clients a proper goodbye, and something resembling an explanation before he vanishes off the grid.

 

One of the few customers whose real name he knows is Harvey, a tall, bespectacled man approaching middle-age. Harvey’s last appointment with Jamie is on Friday, in the room Jamie only half-jokingly calls his office. It looks like a hotel room, with the king-size bed and plush pillows, the fridge and sink and kettle, the comfy sofa, the tasteful neutral décor. He’s only ever seen Harvey here, though when he ducks into the room, smiling shyly, Jamie wishes, as he wishes each time, that it wouldn’t be completely unprofessional to get to know the man outside of work. Harvey’s possibly the most inoffensive human being on the planet, a divorced father of two who works in some hideously boring admin management role, and dresses entirely in carefully ironed shirts and jumpers from Marks and Spencer.

 

He takes his usual place on the sofa, hands folded on his knees, while Jamie makes them a cup of tea. Even though he’s been here dozens of times, he looks around as if he’s somewhere new.

 

“Good week?” Jamie asks him. “You get the Maple sorted?”

 

“Oh yes, yes.” Harvey nods enthusiastically. “It’s flourishing now. Just a little too much nitrogen in the soil.”

 

“My nan had a bonsai tree, but it carked it. Probably because none of us even knew soil had nitrogen in it.”

 

“They’re very delicate things. All living things are delicate.”

 

Jamie nods, his fingers briefly brushing the still-tender skin at the side of his throat as he adds a splash of milk to Harvey’s cup. “Aye, they are. I taught you that, Harv, don’t preach to the fucking choir.”

 

Harvey blushes vividly, which was absolutely the desired effect. The poor sod had originally, back when Jamie started work, hired him in his official capacity as an _escort_ – a ‘rent-a-friend’, as Harvey put it. His wife had just left him, his therapist wasn’t helping, and he didn’t think he could talk to any of his actual friends about some of his deeper problems. It was Jamie who figured out his atrophied interest in women was more of a repressed interest in men. It was right here in this room that he took Harvey’s Viagra prescription, set his lighter to it, then, while those big hands were still flapping in panic and alarm, got down on his knees and showed him what he’d been missing.

 

He calls himself a whore, but he knows fine well that’s not _all_ he is. Harvey is his favourite proof of that, he’s the positive reason (alongside all the safety-related arguments) that Jamie wishes his profession was legal and legitimate. He can help people, those that are shy or awkward, those that just want to escape reality for a while, and he can always tell, even when they say nothing, he can tell from their touch, from their expression, when he’s helped someone find something or feel something, or… Whatever it is, knowing that there are people who leave him having learned something about themselves, or really let themselves loose for the first time, they make all the _other_ clients, the ones who just want him to shut up and bend over, worthwhile.

 

“The kids helped me repot,” Harvey tells him, sipping his tea. “I think Frankie might have the green touch.”

 

“Nice one,” says Jamie. “A wee heir for your allotment plot, eh?”

 

“Maybe. I hope so. Ma…” Harvey trails off, shakes his head apologetically. Jamie has forbidden him from saying his ex-wife’s name, Mandy, when he’s here. There’s too much sadness there, and this isn’t the place for sadness, not for Harvey.

 

“It’s okay,” Jamie tells him, moving behind the sofa and putting his hands on his client’s shoulders, squeezing gently. “Drink your tea.”

 

“It’s a lovely cuppa,” says Harvey. Jamie smiles a tolerant little smile, and sets in with a firm shoulder massage that soon has him relaxing and sighing under Jamie’s touch.

 

Harvey’s appointment is ninety minutes long, after which Jamie breaks the news to him, and gives him the phone number of another guy, Lewis, who’ll look after him just as well. Harvey doesn’t take it easily, and Jamie accepts a hug before he leaves. Might have been easier just to disappear, but it wouldn’t be fair, leaving Harv wondering for the rest of his life if something had happened to him.

 

Jamie takes a quick break, hanging out the window with a cigarette. Hanging out of the next window along is Maeve, who gives him a little salute with her own fag.

 

“Lizzie says you’re leaving us,” she calls. “How’d you swing that one?”

 

Jamie shrugs. He’s actually not entirely sure, though he knows the general answer has a PhD and a private practice. Lizzie is actually an old friend of his, who put the skills picked up at high school (usually behind the bike sheds) straight into practical use by stealing a Prada suit from her rich cousin, lying about her age, and signing on with an agency that turned out not to be _quite_ as high class as she expected, but then, Jamie wouldn’t have been interested in the job opening if it was all rich cunts with flash cars and coke habits. He likes normal people, like Harvey, and… well, not quite like Malcolm. Malcolm isn’t normal. He’s a problem. But a problem for later.

 

Maeve’s fairly new, but she knows the score – you don’t just leave, not without a damn good reason, and Jamie hasn’t been able to think of one. So he goes with something resembling the truth.

 

“My mother’s sick, I’ve got to look after her. Told Benjy on mother’s day, when he’d had a few drams and started getting teary about his own ma. He let me out of my contract.”

 

“Permanently?”

 

Jamie takes a drag on his cigarette and watches Maeve’s dark blond curls as they’re lifted by the breeze. He doesn’t know the answer to that either, and doesn’t want to think about it. _Permanently_. That’s not a very cheerful prospect.

 

“Mebby,” he says, and decides to change the subject. “Who’ve you got tonight?”

 

Maeve rolls her eyes. “Any minute now? Mate of Benjy’s. Won’t even get paid for that one.”

 

“Ach, well, you’re the new girl.”

 

“Any of ‘em ever want you?”

 

“Nope. Can’t say I’m sad about that.”

 

“Who’ve you got?”

 

“Harvey’s just gone. That soft wee thing, y’know.” Jamie checks his watch. “Ten minutes till Ed.”

 

“Saying your farewells, J?”

 

“Aye. Time for a quick shower. We’ll catch up later, eh?”

 

She waves him off, and he slips away to get ready for his next client.

 

Ed’s much more straightforward than Harvey. He’s a big bloke, a self-styled womaniser, can’t even begin to contemplate the notion of bisexuality or coming out to his friends, so once every month or so he deals with his sexuality by coming to see Jamie. Jamie fucks him or sucks him off, and that’s it, end of transaction. This time around, Lewis’s number is accepted with a thanks and a shrug. Nevertheless, Jamie couldn’t have slunk off into the night without telling Ed goodbye.

 

The rest of Jamie’s working weekend is filled with much the same. On Saturday, he sees Penelope, a lawyer with a husband and young children and a hellish extended family and a demanding job. She tells Jamie the same thing she always tell him – _for fuck’s sake, please, just fucking fuck me!_ – and once she’s worked out the week’s tension, and is lying with her head on his thigh, he gives her a different phone number and tells her _arrivederci_ , which earns him a slap on the arm.

 

“Shut up,” she says. “You sound like my nan.”

 

“No, really, I’m going away.”

 

“Well, fuck off, then.”

 

“You’ll miss me.”

 

“Aye, I might, if I have time. Who’s this prick?” She waves the scrap of paper Jamie gave her

 

“Baz. He’ll fuck you almost as good as I do.”

 

“He’d better, or I’ll make a complaint.”

 

“He’s never had one of those before, I promise.”

 

“Heh. You know ‘arrivederci’ means we’ll see each other again?”

 

Jamie didn’t know that, but he’s pleased to learn it.

 

By Sunday, he’s seen all his regulars, explained his soon-to-be absence, and recommended them somebody else he thinks will suit them, so he decides to line his pockets by haunting his usual alleyway. This is freelance, off the books, and dangerous, but it’s also the way he met Malcolm. Malcolm was the first time he’s ever gone home with someone off the street, normally he either heads back into the shadows for a quickie, or takes them back to his room, but that time… he’d had a feeling. Call him a fucking Jessie, but he knew he’d be safe enough.

 

He definitely doesn’t get the same vibe from the guy who offers him fifty quid for a blow-job, but his mind is on other things. He’s a big fellow, late forties maybe, rough-looking, but that type are normally quick to finish and quicker to fuck off out of his life, so he leads the way back into the alley, where he finds himself pushed face-first into the wall.

 

“Hey!” he snarls. “Blow-job, you fucking said!”

 

This sort of thing happens occasionally, and normally Jamie can kick and bite his way out of it. This bastard, however, took him by surprise, and he finds his arms pinned behind his back, his face scraping against damp brick, and his trousers round his knees before he can do anything. He’s caught in a trap that smells of leather, sweat, and halitosis.

 

“Three hundred quid,” he shouts, “that’s what this’ll cost you, ya ugly cunt!”

 

The guy, whose face Jamie would never recognise if he saw it again, grabs him by the hair, pulls his head back, then smacks his forehead against the wall. Jamie blinks, woozy in the wake of the pain, and when he continues to snarl threats and protests, the words come out a bit sluggish. Something trickles down his forehead and along the bridge of his nose, and he watches as it drips onto his shirt, looking dark and sticky and smelling of copper.

 

The only saving grace is that it’s over fast. The guy’s obviously got a good measure on Jamie because he smacks his head against the wall again, kicks him in the back of the knee, and shoves him face-first into a pile of rubbish bags before vanishing swiftly into the night. Jamie tries to get up and chase after him, but his knee gives out and he crashes back to the floor, rolls onto his back and lies there, swearing and yelling wordless threats up at the cloudless sky.

 

There’s nobody to hear him. He’s got no choice but to lie there as still as possible until he’s got his breath back, and then, carefully, he pulls his clothing back together. He can just about sit up, but the dizziness is getting worse, and his knee trembles violently when he tries to put pressure on his foot.

  

This situation is only going to get worse. His mum always told him what’d happen if he fell asleep with a concussion (which he had as a child fairly regularly, reckless wean that he’d been), and he doesn’t fancy dying in some grubby alleyway, so there’s only one thing for it. He staggers upright, leans against the wall for support until he catches his breath again, and fumbles in his pocket for a five pence piece. The phone box is a long and painful limp away, but once he gets there he dials carefully and tells the concerned voice on the other end that he needs help.

 

Help arrives within ten minutes, pulling up alongside the curb in a shiny silver Merc.

 

Most of the time, Jamie can’t for the life of him figure out how he fell into this man’s trap. But right now… right now, he just wants to cling onto him. Lane leaps out of the car and runs around to the pavement, where he balks at the sight before gathering Jamie into a careful hug.

 

“Poor thing,” he murmurs. “Oh, my poor boy… let me look at you.”

 

Jamie resists the urge to whimper as Lane touches his face, but sighs with relief when the doctor does some trick with his long fingers that tugs some of the pain from Jamie’s knee. Lane produces a tiny torch and flicks it into Jamie’s eyes, one at a time, then shakes his head.

 

“You’ll be fine, but you’re going to need stitches. I’ll take you to the hospital-”

 

“No!” Jamie grabs his arm. “I hate fucking hospitals. You do it.”

 

Lane touches his hair gently, strokes his hand, and murmurs, “Okay, okay, shh, sweetheart. Let’s get you home.”

 

Being inside Lane’s car is like being in a little bubble-like universe of their own. It’s brand new, fresh out of the factory a couple of months ago, and it’s easily the flashiest car Jamie’s ever ridden in. The city fades away, and the soft little smells and sounds of Simon Lane – the way he clears his throat, the creaking leather of his shoe as he flexes it against the peddles, the scent of his skin beneath cologne and _Imperial Leather_ – lull Jamie into an odd state of half-stunned comfort.

 

He finds himself admitting, half way home, that he failed to fight his attacker off.

 

Lane gives him an odd side-ways glance. Jamie bites his lip.

 

“He wore a condom – honestly – “

 

“I’m not worried about that.”

 

“Yeah, but-”

 

“I believe you. And I want you to believe me, James – from now on, I’m going to look after you. No more of this. No more faceless strangers, no more putting yourself in danger. Nobody else will ever touch you again, I promise you that.”

 

Jamie stares down at his feet. He can still smell the guy’s rancid breath, still feel him pulling at his hair. The alarm has faded, but the fear is still fresh, his heart is still trying to escape from his chest, and he thinks he might throw up.

 

He manages to hold on until they’re through the big, electronic gates, and Lane has parked on the driveway in front of his house. Jamie throws off his seatbelt, tumbles out onto the gravel, and heaves drool and bile onto the grass verge.

 

Lane strokes his back until he's dry heaving, then kisses his hair, helps him to his feet, and takes him slowly, gently, carefully up into the house.


End file.
